Flexible expansion of data storage capacity

Active Publication Date: 2022-10-04
EMC IP HLDG CO LLC
View PDF7 Cites 0 Cited by
  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent describes a method for adding new physical storage devices to a data storage system and optimizing the use of available space. The method involves dividing each physical device into smaller sections and assigning one or more of these sections to different erasure encoding groups. The system can then add new physical devices to the system and designate these devices' sections as spare spaces. The method can also change the type of erasure encoding scheme used for certain groups of sections. The technical effect of this invention is to improve the efficiency and reliability of data storage systems by optimizing the use of available space and reducing the likelihood of data loss during power failures or system crashes.

Problems solved by technology

However, reconfiguring an existing RAID group requires moving data between disks of the RAID group.
Not only does this movement of data negatively impact system performance, but in the case of solid state drives (SSDs), for example, flash drives, it may cause write amplification, reducing the useful life of an SSD.
Consequently, adding a disk drive to an existing RAID group often is not an attractive option, in which case adding enough disk drives to create a new RAID group is the preferred option for adding storage capacity.
As the capacity of individual disk drives continues to increase, having to add multiple disk drives to a system to satisfy a RAID type has become a limiting factor in scalability.

Method used

the structure of the environmentally friendly knitted fabric provided by the present invention; figure 2 Flow chart of the yarn wrapping machine for environmentally friendly knitted fabrics and storage devices; image 3 Is the parameter map of the yarn covering machine
View more

Image

Smart Image Click on the blue labels to locate them in the text.
Viewing Examples
Smart Image
  • Flexible expansion of data storage capacity
  • Flexible expansion of data storage capacity
  • Flexible expansion of data storage capacity

Examples

Experimental program
Comparison scheme
Effect test

Embodiment Construction

[0019]Described herein is a system and methods for flexibly expanding the storage capacity of a data storage system by adding a single disk drive (i.e., “physical storage device”) or any number of disk drives to an existing storage system without the need to reconfigure existing erasure encoding groups (e.g., RAID groups) of the system. As used herein, an “erasure encoding group” (e.g., a RAID group) is a group of physical storage devices, or slices thereof, grouped together, and defined as a group, to provide data protection in the form of data redundancy in accordance with an error protection scheme, for example, a RAID level or a variation thereof. The manner in which an erasure encoding group, for example a RAID group, can provide data protection in accordance with some embodiments od the invention, is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14 / 587,371, titled “Optimizing Spare Capacity and Spare Distribution” by Robins et al. filed on Dec. 31, 2014, (the '371 application)...

the structure of the environmentally friendly knitted fabric provided by the present invention; figure 2 Flow chart of the yarn wrapping machine for environmentally friendly knitted fabrics and storage devices; image 3 Is the parameter map of the yarn covering machine
Login to View More

PUM

No PUM Login to View More

Abstract

Flexibly expanding the storage capacity of a data storage system by adding a single physical storage device or any number of disk drives to an existing storage system without the need to reconfigure existing erasure encoding groups of the system. The physical storage devices of a data storage system may be divided into a plurality of slices, and each slice may be a member of an erasure encoding group. Physical storage devices that are added to the data storage system may be divided into same number of slices and / to slices of a same size, which then may be added to existing erasure encoding groups, utilized as spare slices or left idle until all of the slices are integrated into the data storage system.

Description

BACKGROUNDTechnical Field[0001]This application generally relates to data storage and more particularly to erasure encoding technology, including RAID technology.Description of Related Art[0002]RAID is a data storage virtualization technology in which multiple physical storage disks are combined into one or more logical units in order to provide data protection in the form of data redundancy, improve system performance, and or for other reasons. Using RAID, data is distributed across the multiple drives according to one or more RAID levels, e.g., RAID-1-RAID-6, RAID 10, etc., or variations thereof, each defining different schemes providing various types and / or degrees of reliability, availability, performance or capacity. Many RAID levels employ an error protection scheme called parity, which may be considered a form of erasure encoding. In a data storage system in which RAID is employed, physical storage devices may be grouped into RAID groups according to a particular RAID schema ...

Claims

the structure of the environmentally friendly knitted fabric provided by the present invention; figure 2 Flow chart of the yarn wrapping machine for environmentally friendly knitted fabrics and storage devices; image 3 Is the parameter map of the yarn covering machine
Login to View More

Application Information

Patent Timeline
no application Login to View More
IPC IPC(8): G06F3/06G06F11/10
CPCG06F3/0631G06F3/061G06F3/0617G06F3/0655G06F3/0689G06F11/1076G06F3/0616G06F3/0652G06F3/0644G06F3/0632G06F3/0608
InventorLI, JUNGUYER, JAMES M.IVES, STEPHEN R.
OwnerEMC IP HLDG CO LLC